Abstract
In this chapter I consider, with a focus on researcher responsibilities, two examples of research which involved experimentation as a research procedure (Stephens in Investigating effects of Six Thinking Hats and emotional intelligence training on creativity thinking and emotional intelligence of recidivists in Lagos State, 2012; Oczak and Niedźwieńska in J Empirical Res Hum Res Ethics 2(3):49–59, 2007). In the first example, the research was aimed at trying to ascertain whether interventions which consisted of creativity training and emotional intelligence training for recidivists in Nigerian prisons (Lagos) had an effect on the creative thinking scores and emotional intelligence scores of participants. I draw out and extrapolate from Stephens’ exposition the responsibility that he assumed, while also encouraging the responsibility of the recidivists to try to activate a potential for learning, while appreciating the limited life chances of prisoners before and after entering the prison system. I move on to discuss Oczak and Niedźwieńska’s research—in which they offer an experiment to ascertain how their proposed new debriefing procedure following a deceptive experiment was received by the research participants. I explain how their debriefing was designed in an effort to generate beneficial and educative effects for participants (and others engaging with the research); and I underscore the importance of their eliciting participants’ experiences of the research procedure as part of their study.
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- 1.
The communications were only with Oluyemi Stephens as I was unable to reach either Oczak or Niedźwieńska (the authors of the second example here). I communicated in-depth with Stephens while he was a postdoctoral fellow at Unisa (2014–2015), under the mentorship of Norma Nel.
- 2.
- 3.
I use the terminology of “prisoners” and “prisons” as this is the terminology Stephens used (as used in Nigeria). In the context of South Africa, people who have offended are referred to as “offenders”, and what were hitherto called “prisons” are called “correctional centers”.
- 4.
Statistically this referred to the probability of not incorrectly accepting the null hypotheses that he constructed. He tested a total of five null hypotheses at a 0.05 level of significance (2012, p. 149). For example, his first null hypothesis was as follows: “There is no significant difference in the ideative flexibility score [a type of creative thinking score] of recidivists … in the two treatment packages ‘Six Thinking Hats’ and emotional intelligence training as compared to their counterparts in the control group” (2012, p. 179). The aim was to test (at a 5% risk of incorrectly accepting the null hypothesis) whether he could accept that “there existed a significant difference” in relation to the various null hypotheses (2012, p. 179).
- 5.
He indicated to me that the Cottage of Hope works mostly with personal funds from the board of trustees (some of whom are dedicated and some are less dedicated). The board of trustees and friends are the source of the funding.
- 6.
The Belmont report (1979), which I discuss extensively in Chap. 8, states that two rules need to be followed to comply with the principle of beneficence: The first is to “do no harm,” and the second is to “maximize possible benefits [for individual participants and others in society who may benefit from the knowledge developed] and minimize possible harms” (http://learn.yale.edu/hsp/module_1/3_beneficence.asp). My interpretation of Oczak and Niedźwieńska’s research is that they sought to consider how experimental research (especially research involving deception of subjects) could mitigate against potential harm and indeed create benefits for participants, while also contributing to knowledge about experimental designs for other researchers to take into account.
- 7.
Stephens does not provide a table depicting the research design. However, in a table he supplies of the participants (2012, p. 127), he offers three column expressing the “personality type” of the 85 participants, namely Type A, Type B and Type C, as defined and measured in the psychological literature. He shows in the table how they were distributed in the various groups (the two experimental ones and the control group). The number of Type A personality participants were distributed as follows: twelve, twelve and ten in the Six Thinking Hats, Emotional Intelligence, and HIV training; Type B personality were distributed as ten, ten and eight participants in the Six Thinking Hats, Emotional Intelligence, and HIV training; and Type C were distributed as eight, eight and seven. However, I have not focused on this in my outline of the study. In Sect. 5.2.4 I return briefly to this aspect of the study.
- 8.
Stephens mentioned to me that one factor that might have caused them not to wish to participate was that some of them were not literate and may have wondered if they could participate in filling in questionnaires, etc., even though he mentioned that assistance would be available in this process (pers. comm., 18 Nov. 2015).
- 9.
When I sent Stephens the draft of this chapter in February 2017, he suggested (via an email reply) that this detail on the way of assigning the participants to the groups should be included.
- 10.
As far as validity of the Ibadan Creativity Assessment Scale (ICAS) is concerned, Stephens notes that Akinboye (1976) took various ideas from a number of authors (who could be considered as experts) in the field of creative intelligence testing, and designed simple items for measuring creativity using these as bases. The ICAS was tested on 200 participants in Nigeria. Akinboye also determined via Cronbach’s alpha whether the items for each subscale of ICAS could be said to be tapping into the same construct by checking the degree of internal consistency between the items of the construct (Stephens, 2012, p. 124). Akinboye furthermore organized test-retest reliabilities with the 200 participants after a period of four weeks. That is, the tests were re-administered to the same participants to see if similar responses would be given. The test and re-test revealed acceptable reliability scores—as measured by Pearson’s r (Stephens, 2012, p. 124).
- 11.
For the emotional intelligence testing, Akinboye (2002) also referred to authors in the field and adapted existing scales somewhat, while checking for convergent validity with the “Emotional Entrepreneurship Test” and for discriminant validity with the “Emotional Stress Test” (Stephens, 2012, p. 122).
- 12.
When speaking about this factor, Stephens notes that Animasahun reported in 2011 that 75% of armed robbers in Abuja were university graduates belonging to the unemployed sector (2011, p. 2).
- 13.
Stephens also did an analysis of covariance to determine the degree of effect of his hypothesized independent variables on dependent ones, but for the purposes of this chapter, these details are not presented.
- 14.
Nassif and Quevillon (2008, p. 13) contend that one can apply the Heisenberg uncertainty principle (as it pertains in quantum physics) to the observation of participants’ creativity. They cite Plucker’s (1999) application of this principle to creativity research where Plucker states that “one cannot simultaneously observe and also account for creativity completely. The modality in which creativity is being searched for necessarily determines the nature of creativity that becomes seen” (2008, p. 13, my italics).
- 15.
The fact that he was a postdoctoral fellow in South Africa (starting from 2014) made his visits to the prisons less regular than before, but he still participated with them during his postdoctoral fellowship, for example, via the NGO Cottage of Hope and via his links with the National University of Nigeria.
- 16.
When I asked Stephens if he thought there were any options for addressing such stigmatization, he suggested that positive role models needed to be nurtured. He cited the case of an ex-prisoner who had studied (through the initiatives created by College of Hope) via the National University of Nigeria’s distance education program. This person, after leaving prison, had gone to work for the university—and the prisoners, officials and of course university staff were aware of this. He constituted a positive role model in this regard (pers. comm., 9 February 2015).
- 17.
Fifty-three were women and six were men (2007, p. 53). Oczak and Niedźwieńska note in this regard that it is possible that “there are gender differences in the interpretation of information provided during both types of debriefing procedures” and therefore future research could look into this (2007, p. 56).
- 18.
One participant from the control group was eliminated on analysis because the researchers found that she had failed to fill in the various forms properly.
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Romm, N.R.A. (2018). Active Use of Experiments: Responsibly Inviting Participants and Others to Review Options for Agency. In: Responsible Research Practice. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74386-8_5
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